


This Is Leaving

by crankyoldman, venefica_aura (crankyoldman)



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Break Up, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-16
Updated: 2010-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-08 01:04:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crankyoldman/pseuds/crankyoldman, https://archiveofourown.org/users/crankyoldman/pseuds/venefica_aura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Rinoa decided to let go had a little to do with something stupid and mundane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is Leaving

**Author's Note:**

  * For [drakonlily (krayxlidlon)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/krayxlidlon/gifts).



> [](http://vincentvalentine.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**vincentvalentine**](http://vincentvalentine.dreamwidth.org/)/[](http://www.livejournal.com/users/drakonlily/profile)[**drakonlily**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/drakonlily/) wanted a story about how Rinoa decided to break up with Squall. So I wrote it. I don't normally break them up simply because well, everyone does, and I'm contrary (even if I don't see them as being quite so epically perfect either) so I tried to do it in a way that didn't turn anyone into a villain. Sometimes it just fades (I know that from experience).

She'd decided to do the laundry on her own again.

Garden had people that did that for everyone, little bags they put their dirty uniforms and training sweats in to be picked up and little boxes they came back folded in. The process was just as magical as the one that she had grown up with, just on a bigger scale.

Squall had given her a look like she was insane when she asked for his dirty laundry and told him that she was going to do it herself. Maybe it was the stories Selphie had been telling her about the nobility of Sir Laguna or the invisible weight of Lady Edea's lingering legacy. Mostly she was getting bored waiting for something to happen here. She couldn't go home and Timber got along fine without her.

So she was doing laundry.

Rinoa hadn't anticipated how much measuring was involved with the detergent, or how much thought she had to put into what went into each load. Maybe her mother would have explained it to her some day, but then, the more she learned about Julia Heartilly the more she realized how helpless she was to some things.

She didn't want to be the girl who couldn't live on her own. That's why she'd run off to Timber and adopted their rebellion as her own. And even if Rinoa still didn't do things quite like everyone else there, still couldn't plan and still got made fun of sometimes, at least she was trying.

And here?

She wanted to say she knew that it was all about love. Rinoa had picked up Squall's laundry too because people did nice things for the people they loved. It had to be strong, she'd been lost and ripped through all of space and time for him.

Or had she?

Rinoa had only managed to switch off the washer in time before the bubbles got all over the laundromat. The Garden housing staff had wisely declined her request to use their equipment. Pretty soon the manager would come in and probably yell at her. She barely felt enough to even sniffle at her failure.

She and Squall and been trying to prove something. She'd been trying to prove she could stick with something real, had the endurance and the commitment that no one had ever thought she had. What she'd gotten in return was a mostly emotionally distant boyfriend and a constant watch status almost worse than when she lived with her father.

Her first love had been so romantic and exciting--and complete crap. Soon as he had a moment he found someone that fit into his view of the world he dropped her like a bad habit. Maybe it had been a little satisfying to find out that Squall was his rival, at first, but it was just fuel to add to an intensity between them that she could never reach. Probably wasn't love either, but it was something else she didn't have.

Poor little princess, really.

What was Squall trying to prove? Even after the couple years of them being together, sometimes fighting, sometimes behaving like normal young people, but mostly a void of contact connected by magic, she still didn't know him. Everyone else wanted her to be someone that walked behind him, and he wanted her to be someone that walked before him. But all she wanted was someone to walk beside her.

She left the laundromat, not crying or smiling or having cleaned up her mess. She'd call Selphie to maybe go fix it -- she always seemed so capable with such things.

\---

Rinoa was at a train station when she called Squall, carrying nothing but the clothes on her back and some money in her pocket. Enough money at least. Running away to Timber was something she was at least good at.

"Rinoa? Where are you. Selphie said you trashed a laundromat and--"

"I can't do this, Squall. And I don't think you can do it either."

The line was silent for a while. At least she knew that he always thought too darn much before saying anything.

"Maybe you're right."

"And there's a difference between people leaving and being taken away, Squall." A lump formed in her throat and she swallowed it down. "This time is leaving."

It was strange how easy it was to leave a knight when he'd already stopped believing.


End file.
